


Dii Manes

by thatfangirl



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-14
Updated: 2004-07-14
Packaged: 2017-10-05 11:50:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatfangirl/pseuds/thatfangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The souls of dead heroes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dii Manes

**Author's Note:**

> Post-"Loss" AU.

It didn't bother Elliot that Liv hadn't told him; it bothered him that he hadn't known. The clues had clacked neatly together as Cabot's motorcade had trundled into the night. Scant hours later at Cabot's closed-casket funeral more overlooked glances and coincidences had risen easily from the depths of his memory; the rain that had lashed the church had not been alone in making him feel blind.

It didn't bother him, but he did wonder why Liv hadn't told him. They bickered and loved like brother and sister; Liv should have allowed him his right to glare at Cabot and threaten to hurt her if she hurt Olivia. Watching Liv watch Cabot's casket sink into the earth as if her lover were actually inside, he had imagined glaring at Cabot at great length. After Liv had finally convinced him to leave her to the quiet of her apartment, he had returned home and slipped into bed beside Kathy. In between the usual unfurling of his subconscious, images of Olivia stretched over Cabot had flashed across his eyelids; if he and Liv were brother and sister, then perhaps a few incest taboos were needed to line the space between them.

Cragen met him in the squad room the next morning. He guided Elliot to his office and shut the door, then closed and opened his small, flat eyes. Finally, he said that Detective Benson had been killed in an early-morning drunk-driving accident. The silence stretched between them until, because he was her partner, because of course he knew her secrets, Elliot's mouth was mumbling that Olivia and the ADA had been close, closer than Cragen had thought.

He waited for another note to call him to another black motorcade, but it didn't come. He dutifully attended another closed-casket funeral, but he didn't believe it. He dialed the DEA and the FBI until his fingers numbed, but they denied all knowledge and it became another thing that Liv hadn't told him, but that he should have known.

Eventually the black band came off their badges and it bothered Elliot less that he hadn't known and not-at-all that Liv hadn't told him. Time passed, and then one day there was a below-the-fold article on the front page of the _Times_ reporting that Columbian drug trafficker Cesar Velez had been killed in a shootout with a rival cartel. Elliot glanced up at the squad-room door, almost expecting Liv to walk through it, but Liv didn't come to work that day, and neither did Cabot.

He waited for a month, and then he called in all the favors from all the contacts he had cultivated since Liv had left and finally used some of his vacation days. He didn't mumble to anyone why he was going, but he amused himself by imagining Huang's reaction to a confession of ghost hunting.

Kelly Chambers was a Washington State Trooper and Julia Hazelton taught law at UW. As Elliot's rental car coasted past their suburban home, he saw silverware flash in the candlelight thrown by the dining room table's centerpiece. Liv's hair was longer than when she had first joined the squad and Cabot's had been tinted red. The smiles on their faces surprised him.

He circled the block and glided by again. Liv's eyes flicked to the window and narrowed. Elliot lowered his foot on the gas and guided the car back to the airport hotel. He booked the red-eye to LaGuardia, where Munch met him outside the security checkpoint. During the ride into the city, he amused himself by imagining Munch's reaction to a real conspiracy.

Three days later, he asked Huang if he believed in ghosts.


End file.
